dedicated to those who paint and those who appreciate watercolor paintings: featuring watercolor, the process, and the finished product

Friday, November 15, 2013

"a lovin' spoonful sort of afternoon" : next painting

initial washes and features

more face, neck, and hand

i got started on this one about a week ago. i liked the dreamy look on her face and the pose with her hand up by her head. it is a fairly large painting (15"X22") on 300# cold press arches paper. i haven't been too fond of painting on the cold press lately favoring the hot press surface. so, this will be interesting. here are the sequential steps in the process as of last evening. there are a couple of things that i noticed when painting this piece. the first is that i have to be careful of this kind of background to not go too dark too quickly. additionally i should add some arbitrary and varied colors first before settling on a dominant hue. the second is that i am continually amazed at the effect of a very thin glaze of ultramarine blue over the top of other colors. on warm colors it cools them down and makes them recede. that shouldn't be too surprising and isn't. but it also can brighten up an otherwise drab green or bluish gray, which is the case here at the top background. it seems to be able to do this without a huge value price. by this i mean it doesn't change the value much, if at all. not sure why but there you are!

decisions about shirt color and some background

hair modeling, chair and shirt wash

initial background washes (raw sienna/cobalt blue) too grayi think-those are shadows from the window on the left

more hair and shirt, cooling facial shadows withultramarine blue

finishing her hand, begin wrinkles/folds on shirt,brightening background on top with ultramarine wash

3 comments:

Hello Bob:) Nice meeting you! I love your art and like the way you share all the steps you make to finish a painting. Very nice. I'm your new follower:) Have a nice weekend. And sorry for my poor english :(

Gorgeous portrait, the skin tone is perfect and she looks so alive, love the dreamy look on her face , and thanks as always for your explanations and steps, really helpful , makes me want to pull out my watercolors again.